Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor [Book Review]

Welcome to Night Vale is a wonderful podcast. If you are reading this and haven’t yet listened go do that and then come back here. You probably only need to listen to about twenty of the 20 minute episodes to get a baseline to go into this book; in reality the book reads well on it’s own, you just might not understand a few of the jokes

It is a well constructed story and the language is great and familiar to listeners though with the exception of the interjections from Cecil (the host of Night Vale community radio) it does read more akin to a novel instead of the playful language of the podcast.

The story follows Jackie (a perpetually nineteen year old pawnshop runner) and Diane (a mother of a shapeshifting teenager). The man in the tan hat gives a message to Jackie that says “King City” that shakes up the balance that Jackie has been used to in her life. The story spirals from there.

The story pays off and wraps up in a bow but that may be too well for Night Vale.